A prominent psychologist is offering a clinical reading of President Donald Trump's recent cognitive testing, suggesting that the frequency and nature of the assessments point to ongoing decline rather than initial diagnosis. Dr. John Gartner, a former Johns Hopkins University Medical School professor of psychology, told The Daily Beast that Trump has undergone three Montreal Cognitive Assessments this year alone, a pattern he says is telling.
What the Testing Pattern Suggests
Gartner explained that a single cognitive test might be justified as part of a routine physical, particularly given a patient's age. But repeating the test three times changes the picture entirely. "If you're giving it to him three times, that means you're not assessing dementia. That means you're monitoring dementia," Gartner said, drawing a distinction between initial diagnosis and ongoing tracking of a condition's progression.
The psychologist also flagged Trump's recent MRI, which the president claimed not to understand. Gartner found this implausible given how noticeable and lengthy an MRI procedure is. When doctors order such tests, they typically explain the reason to their patient. The White House has since characterized the October MRI as preventative monitoring of Trump's heart and abdomen, but Gartner sees the pattern differently. "I think they're giving him cognitive tests and MRIs every six months to monitor the progress of his dementia, and/or strokes," he said.
Trump's Public Comments
Interestingly, Trump has repeatedly mentioned his cognitive test performance in public remarks, most recently at a December rally in Rocky Mount, North Carolina, where he described the exam as challenging and said he "aced" it. He detailed questions on the test, including one asking him to identify a giraffe from images of animals, then added, "It then gets harder!" Gartner interprets this public boasting as Trump inadvertently revealing something significant. "He kind of gave the game away, as he often does," the psychologist said, suggesting that Trump's need to repeatedly tout his test results belies underlying concern about cognitive fitness.
What It Means
Gartner emphasized the importance of measuring cognitive change against an individual's own baseline. When someone's rate of speech doubles or other markers shift noticeably, that constitutes a meaningful change in mental status. From this clinical perspective, the pattern of testing and the frequency of rescanning point to doctors working to track how quickly any decline is progressing, rather than simply diagnosing it for the first time.
Source: LGBTQ Nation
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